Tropical Pacific Drifting Buoys
Rick Lumpkin / Mayra Pazos, AOML, Miami
SEPTEMBER 2018
During September 2018, 272 satellite-tracked surface drifting buoys were
reporting from the tropical Pacific. Several drifters indicated extremely
strong (1 m/s) eastward anomalies in the far western Pacific, centered at 2-3N.
Elsewhere, the drifter array indicated that large-scale currents were close
to their climatological September strengths across the basin.

FIGURE A1.1
a) Top: Movements of drifting buoys in the tropical Pacific Ocean.
The linear segments of each trajectory represent a one week displacement.
Trajectories of buoys which have lost their subsurface drogues are gray; those with
drogues are blue.
b) Middle: Monthly mean currents calculated from all buoys 1993-2010 (gray),
and currents measured by the drogued buoys this month (black) smoothed by an
optimal filter.
c) Bottom: Anomalies from the climatological monthly mean currents for this month.
|